I've asked this before, but I'll ask again: what is it about noise music that appeals to you guys? I'm not trying to be snarky or anything when I ask, I'm genuinely curious because I myself can't wrap my ears around it at all. It's just...unpleasant noise I'd rather not hear. I have to hear unpleasant noise all day at work, so when I go to listen to some music I'd prefer it be not that.

But seriously, can you guys explain it a bit to me so I can at least understand the genre a bit?

Because it's not unpleasant. I didn't like noise until many years after I first heard it, but I always liked MAKING noise myself. That's seems to be pretty common with noise fans... I found hours of entertainment just making "collages" with a microcassette recorder when I was a kid, for instance.

Noise is something that I think just has to grow on you, but listening to noise is not a deeply complex, emotional experience (don't let some marketing wiz who runs a tape label try to suggest otherwise, either). It can be visceral, yes, but not complex. It's just pure, sonic ear candy for a lot of people. Purely textural sounds that make the listener go "Aw yeh! that's it, the stuff!".

Listening to cut-up music with dynamic sounds, multiple tones, textures and layers and crunches and blips and explosions panned around and spit out at hyper speed simply "sounds fucking awesome" to some people. Even if it's not hyper-distorted and fast, it can still provide a similar experience: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roASIVIXGXY (try listening to it with headphones)

It just sounds... neat. And so I enjoy listening to it.

Conversely, some folks enjoy listening to water running and fans humming or birdsong because it relaxes them, and HNW [Harsh Noise Wall] could be easily compared to that, at least for me personally. Listening to and recording HNW puts me into a very calm, relaxed and meditative state. Noise in general can do this when I am zoning out in front of a bunch of pedals with my eyes closed... I've made noise to help me get tired and go to sleep, in fact.

Noise can be many things. Although noise enthusiasts tend to be less concerned with classification than metal heads tend to be ("This is blackened grindcore not grindy black metal. Get it right you N00b"). There is harsh noise like Merzbow. This is essentially electrical white noise. The other leg of harsh noise would be crust punk taken to the next level. I would suggest listening to the band The gurogeriegegege (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXZ21s71kDU.) there are also bands like Coil and Throbbing gristle. This is much more approachable than the above mentioned artists.

As a noise fan, I hafta say, this all seems very inaccurate from my perspective. Not "pretentious", just not really accurate...

I think fans of Noise (like Merzbow), myself included, are pretty bugged by how loosely the word is applied to a lot of what is actually MUSIC, or at least highly musical/making use of traditional musical instruments to produce "noisy" but still fairly coherent and rhythmic, structured songs.

Still, it's not as bad as metal/electronic music fans and all the dozens of sub-sub-sub-classifications, it's just a general annoyance with the lack of "pure noise" being represented in "noise music" discussions. Like, to me, Sunn O))) and Melt-Banana... both fine in their own way, but nothing close to "Noise" in my mind.

Also, describing Merzbow's sound as "essentially electrical white noise" is a gross oversimplification to the extreme. That could pretty easily be used to describe some HNW, but Merzbow's catalog is gargantuan, and also quite varied, sonically speaking:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aoe1Wz5g9Nc (Not my favorite song, or even album, just an example... and definitely NOT a "pure noise" record, either).

I also fail to see the connection between Crust and HN (or Metal and HN, for that matter). Industrial? Yes. Prog/Psychedelic? Sure...The Gerogerigegege were also quite prolific and varied... yet in no way were they "Crust"... Their releases run the gamut from Punky Noisecore, Ambient, Industrial, Found sounds and even pure Noise, but they don't really have much of anything to do with Crust, or even "Harsh Noise", just the Noise/Noisecore scene in a very general sense.

Noise bands/groups I enjoy are C.C.C.C., Merzbow, Government Alpha, Masonna, GeroGeriGegege, Whitehouse, Man is the Bastard/Bastard Noise and Supression if they count. As far as crust/grindcore going into noise I can say that is wrong. Harsh noise is very different then being noisy. Also the true masters of noisy punk is Disclose.

Someone mentioned Gnaw Their Tongues and I second that band but they aren't very noisy on all their releases. For All Slaves... A Song of False Hope is a great ambient black metal album that is actually an hour long even though its an EP.

I rather like this "song" (are noise tracks called songs?), although no other noise I've heard has really done anything for me. Actually not even sure if would even go in the noise genre, might be an extreme form of industrial? Not well versed in this music at all...

I rather like this "song" (are noise tracks called songs?), although no other noise I've heard has really done anything for me. Actually not even sure if would even go in the noise genre, might be an extreme form of industrial? Not well versed in this music at all...

Most would classify BDN as "Death Industrial", yes.

DI is basically Power Electronics' "Emo" counterpart (yet somehow WAY better than most trite, lame, wannabe-misanthrope PE acts out there). It's more subdued, darker, and typically deals with themes like "inner turmoil", as opposed to thinly-veiled tirades of suburban white boys who think pussyfooting support of fascism, serial killers and misogyny are the pinnacle of edginess (i.e., most PE acts today who didn't get the memo that Whitehouse actually have a sense of humor, and most of their material should be considered extreme satire, if anything).

Rolf Liebermann composed this piece for the Swiss Expo (National exhibition) 1964. Scored for 156 machines - amongst which one can find 16 typewriters, 18 calculator machines, 8 accounting machines, 12 office perforators, 10 caisses enregistreuses, 8 humidificateurs-colleurs, 8 tele-scripteurs, 2 metronomes, 4 bells of signalisation, 2 entrance door gongs, 10 claxons, 16 telephones, 40 experimental signal receptors,1 fork lift, a duplicator and a monte-charge. Rolf Liebermann was also the head of the main music section of the Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) from 1957 to 1959. In this function he was responsible for instigating the famous NDR Jazzworkshops. His most popular work might be his Concerto for Jazz Band and Symphony Orchestra which was premiered by Hans Rosebaud in Donaueschingen in 1954.

Hmmm.... if nothing else, this thread led me to finally check out Sigillum S, an old, Italian experimental act whose early work seems to be rather fucking good. Sort of an odd hybrid of organic, shadowy outfits such as Ain Soph and Maeror Tri. Awesome...will have to purchase some of their old releases on Bandcamp.

Yes, I know. A bit too musically, but I am not too fond of electronic stuff. Such rather harmonic kind of music, which appears perverted or strangely arranged has a singular charm. Maybe it is not noise from the perspective of those, who happen to be active or well versed in the scene but others will disagree at this point.

The Gerogerigegege were also quite prolific and varied... yet in no way were they "Crust"... Their releases run the gamut from Punky Noisecore, Ambient, Industrial, Found sounds and even pure Noise, but they don't really have much of anything to do with Crust [...].

People believe that the Geros were a Crust-influenced band because they've made several, nasty-sounding cover version of Ramones songs and the "1, 2, 3, 4!" running gag.

I am more of a power electronics enthusiast - when it comes to actually investing financial resources into records, that is. I prefer power electronics' overall more structured, more conceptual nature (however, I am not one of those "Sexual violence, yeah, I dig that!" types, but I cherish the genre's stubborn will and determination to explore extremes, and the snarky humour, too), but I do greatly enjoy noise, too. Actually, I prefer noise over power electronics in a live-setting (although I enjoy a good power electronics performance, too), or in making it myself. Noise demands nothing and gives everything.

Reclusa's Doorway to the Perpetual Suffering, must have for fans of noisy industrialized funeral doom

Without listening to or knowing anything about this band, I'd like to recommend Vennt, too... Definitley not Noise, but really good stuff anyway. I supposed I could best describe their CD as droning Sludge crossed with Power Electronics: http://www.myspace.com/vennt

http://www.metal-archives.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=89944 this thread could be merged with yours, as noise has come up many times.

Somehow I managed to overlook this suggestion. Well, I could not disagree more.

Just based on some of the rather naive questions asking if there is somehow a connection between Crust and noise, and the mere fact that the genres listed in that thread you linked to have nothing to do with NOISE, I doubt there's any actual Noise discussion happening in there or any other thread excluding this one (drone and dark ambient =/= noise).

I fail to see the (sonic) connection between, say, 90's-era Merzbow and Sunn O))), or Slowdive, or even Lustmord. Different things entirely.

I admit, I haven't read the thread, but I find it very unlikely that people posting in a thread for stuff like My Bloody Valentine and Krallice and whatnot are interested in Masonna.

Apparently the person used to make noise comp tapes and distribute them randomly about town. While I can't say I remember a lot about whether or how much this blog helped me in discovering the genre, I appreciate the notion of "planting" unusual music in accessible places, as he/she says, "parking lots, grocery stores, paper boxes, tossed in open car windows, handed to people on the street, nearly anywhere people will likely pick it up." There aren't any tidy links to these compilations in a digitized format, however. The links tend to go to artists' pages (including bandcamp). No youtubes, either. Thus, really the blog will require an extra step of work, and that assumes a decent percentage of these links remain active. I just thought it was interesting.

Well, I have already released some shit through Ana Mawt, a noise project of mine. One album (Blitzkrieg, through Depressive Illusions and Shit Noise), one split with Hari Maia (the war has just begun, through Depressive Illusions as well), both physical, and taken part in three net compilations.

Anyone else into Fire in the Head? Confessions of a Narcissist is my favourite recent noise/p.e. record, they're great live too.

I only own one FITH CD, and I either never got around to it, or only played it once and forgot it, but this gives me some motivation to give it a whirl, assuming I stop being too lazy to hook up my CD player.

I can rarely listen to "pure"/real Noise (lots of Noise influenced stuff though), but I fucking love making it- when I make Noise I don't have to worry about composing the way I do when I'm making Black Metal or whatever else- it's nice to be able to improvise something and still have it turn out sounding cool. I like the way it pushes the boundaries of what is/isn't music too, and, when it's done right, it just sounds so monolithic and terrifying, and not like anything else.

Nor Noise is a documentary – or rather an interview film – about Noise music. Which is not music nor mere noise but something in between.

Through 12 interviews with 12 highly diverse artists within the Noise scene, answers are given to What is Noise? Where does it come from? How do you work with sounds as your main instrument? The relationship between Noise and popular culture is reflected upon, and Noise is put into a historical context spanning from the Futurists and up to todays laptop artists.

Anyone familiar with Diagram: A? He's from Western Mass, so all of the good record stores around here are pretty saturated with his stuff. Which is fine by me, as he's quickly becoming one of my favorite harsh noise artists. Apparently he has a huge homemade setup, consisting of all kinds of out-dated, malfunctioning technology (phones, computer parts, etc). I gotta try to catch him live one of these days. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF87dYOvnWA I'm not even gonna pretend to know what he's doing there, but it looks cool as hell. His best songs strike a great balance between being incredibly harsh and alienating while also having a semblance of structure, which gives the music a sense of tension that I find lacking in some more overtly freeform artists.

Also, does anyone here live in a place with a prominent noise scene? If so, what's it like?